


This is How it Feels (To Take a Fall)

by waltzmatildah



Category: Graceland (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-05
Updated: 2014-09-05
Packaged: 2018-02-16 05:57:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2258379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waltzmatildah/pseuds/waltzmatildah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An AU coda to S02E09, 'Gratis'. <i>Paige spends most of her time forgetting how to be upright.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	This is How it Feels (To Take a Fall)

Three days.

Paige uses her fingers to count them off.

One, two...

It’s three days later when everything falls apart.

Johnny is dead and Mike is most of the way there with him. Charlie was kinda, maybe pretty sure she was pregnant right up until the point she was one thousand percent convinced she was miscarrying, Briggs is in custody for a murder she can’t quite convince herself he didn’t commit, and Paige, Paige spends most of her time forgetting how to be upright.

 

 

The arrest came first. 

No, wait.

Johnny died. He died and she didn’t even know. Until she did. Until her phone rang mid-afternoon and someone spoke words at Paige that she couldn’t even begin to comprehend and Briggs was already in custody and Mike had gone all radio silent without warning and Johnny was alive when she answered the phone and then someone said some words and he wasn’t alive anymore. Hadn’t been for hours, apparently.

So technically, that’s what came first.

The barrel of a gun pushed against the base of his skull. He wouldn’t have seen it coming they lie, to each other, to themselves.

The arrest came next.

 

 

But she’s not thinking about that yet. 

 

 

She’d found Mike face-down. Too many hours past the point he was supposed to check in, Paige and her team had made their move. There were warm ashes in a furnace that Paige had refused, is still refusing, to think about, and Mike was face-down on the floor.

There was no blood, which made no sense. Because his eyes were shut and his hands were unfathomably still and if he’d been shot she’d have known what to do. She’d have applied pressure and searched for an entry wound and called for back-up and told him everything was going to be fine.

She’d have joked about him one-upping her and then declared him the winner, once and for all.

But there was no blood.

And it made no sense.

His eyes, shut, and his hands, unfathomably still.

 

 

Paige keeps counting.

 

 

Both literally and metaphorically, she’s on her knees. But four comes after three, and then five and six.

 

 

And Charlie starts speaking in whispers again at some point around then…

 

 

There’s a debriefing at headquarters. She can’t, won’t, doesn’t leave the hospital. Graceland is gone, at least for now, for her, for them. She doesn’t need to be twenty miles across town to know that with a concrete assuredness settled heavy against her heaving ribs.

Johnny is dead and Charlie’s voice, when she remembers to use it, barely reaches above a whisper.

Graceland is gone.

For them.

 

 

Paige can’t remember the last time she saw Jakes.

 

 

And Mike had a piece of skull removed so his brain could swell into the gap. She needs him to wake up now because he wins.

 

Charlie’s holding her hand. Or maybe she’s holding Charlie’s hand. She remembers their fingers catching, hours ago now, twisting, gripping. She moves her thumb, a jerky, up and down cartoon of something she intends to be comforting. 

“Charlie,” she says. “Charlie, Charlie, Charlie…”  
“What are we supposed to do now?” 

Johnny is still dead.

 

 

The arrest warrant for Briggs sticks and it is not the ground-shifting shock it probably should be. Paige hears rumours that he tried a half-hearted self-defence claim on for size but it didn’t fit, not even close…

He buried a woman’s husband in the middle of the desert.

She wants to punch him in the face but she’s too busy holding Charlie’s hand.

Catching, twisting, gripping. Mike wakes up then.

 

 

Seven, eight.

Nine.

 

 

Johnny’s body comes home in a wooden box and an American flag and it is the most absurd thing Paige has ever seen.

She leaves the hospital for that.

Mike only knows who she is every other hour, so she leaves the hospital for Johnny.

 

 

Paige still can’t remember the last time she saw Jakes.

 

Eleven.

Twelve.

The left side of Mike’s body isn’t working like it should because the right side of his brain has turned to mush. It is nowhere near as simple as that, but Paige is beyond comprehending the more detailed explanation.

Thirteen.

 

 

She walks past Graceland and pretends, just for a minute, that it’s still home.


End file.
